Chris Beckett. Our Land. (Conflicts).
A slightly more thoughtful story than a couple of the predecessors in the volume, as befitting a social work academic.
Is Anybody Out There? (ed Nick Gevers and Marty Halpern. Daw, 2010).
DAW Books anthology themed around the Fermi Paradox. There are some good stories in here – Irvine, Lake, Langford and Vukcevich are my picks – but no real standouts.
James Morrow. The Vampires of Paradox. (Is Anybody Out There?)
Amusing tale in which Morrow closes out the Fermi Paradox volume by addressing the issue of paradox head-on.
Felicity Shoulders and Lesley What. Rare Earth. (Is Anybody Out There?)
Grandma holds the keys, or the rare minerals, which point to the reason for the (re)appearance of the aliens.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2010
Libling, Schulz and Irvine the pick of the issue for me.
Ian Watson. A Waterfall of Lights. (Is Anybody Out There?)
A scientific researcher at Oxford University realises that the aliens are already amongst, but we haven’t been able to see it..
Steven Popkes. The Crocodiles. (F&SF May/June 2010)
A story about which I’m quite ambivalent. It’s told by a German scientist in the
Lokiko Hall. The Gypsy’s Boy. (F&SF May/June 2010)
A blind young, bereft by the death of the elderly gypsy woman to bought him and raised him as her own, finds solace in the arms of a wind spirit.
Robert Onopa. The Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe. (F&SF May/June 2010)
A very sophisticated organic AI controlled train set is a perfect Xmas present for a young boy….
Rachel Pollack. Forever. (F&SF May/June 2010)
The Blessed Lady of Dark Forever tires of her job ferrying the dead…
Matthew Hughes. Timmy, Come Home. (Is Anybody Out There?)
Brodie is disturbed about the voices in his head, and we follow, with wry humour, his progression through the hands of a variety of specialists.
Dale Bailey. Silence. (F&SF May/June 2010)
A victim of bullying finds something in the woods – something weak and needy, and very much out of place.
Pat Cadigan. The Taste of Night. (Is Anybody Out There?)
A young woman living on the streets is struggling with an sensory overload – is it synesthesia, or a sixth sense?
Rosanne Rabinowitz. Harmony in my Head. (Conflicts).
A story with a very definite sense of time and place.
Hilary Goldstein. Seven Sins for Seven Dwarves. (F&SF May/June 2010)
Retelling of the Snow White story, with the dwarves altogether darker than the Disney versions.
Alex Irvine. Remotest Mansions of the Blood. (F&SF May/June 2010).
The difference between what is real, and what is dream, and who is doing the dreaming, and what it all means, becomes very, very blurred.
Interzone #226, January/February 2010.
Couple of good ‘uns.
Stephen Gaskell. Aquestria. (Interzone #226, Jan/Feb 2010)
A big central conceit sprung on the reader right at the end.
Ray Vukcevich. One Big Monkey. (Is Anybody Out There?)
Clever, quirky short from Vukcevich, with humanity turning inwards, self-obsessed, blurring identities.
Aaron Schulz. Dr. Death vs the Vampire. (F&SF May/June 2010)
A passenger with special abilities on a long-distance bus journey ponders how to use the special powers invested in him.
Yoon Ha Lee. Flower, Mercy, Needle Chain. (Lightspeed Magazine #4, September 2010).
A clever short story, an appetiser, that leaves you wanting more.
Rachel Swirsky. Again and again and again. (Interzone #226, Jan/Feb 2010)
Clever little piece looking at the consequences of each generation taking things just one step further than the previous one.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The Dark Man. (Is Anybody Out There?)
The Spanish Steps in Rome are the location for an intriguing story.
John Sladek. The Real Martian Chronicles. (F&SF May/June 2010)
Sardonic wit in the form of a week’s mostly mundane Martian diary entries from a recent colonist.
Elizabeth Bourne. A History of Cadmium. (F&SF May/June 2010)
A young artist finds out about her now late mother and herself, and the role of painting, and pigments, in their story.
Jay Lake. Human Error. (Interzone #226, Jan/Feb 2010)
Gritty, sweaty, emotional drama, with the focus on the human relationships rather than the science or the technology, as is Lake’s trademark.
Neal Asher. The Cuisinart Effect. (Conflicts.)
Excruciatingly poorly written military SF.
Fred Chappell. Thief of Shadows. (F&SF May/June 2010)
By way, I believe, of a prequel to previous ‘Shadow’ stories by Chappell featuring light-fingered Falco.
Michael Libling. Why that Crazy Old Lady goes up the Mountain. (F&SF May/June 2010)
An opening story with an audacious conceit bang slap in the middle of it, one that is unsettling and lodges itself in the mind.
David Langford. Graffiti in the Library of Babel. (Is Anybody Out There?)
I was pleased to see David Langford in the volume – he doesn’t write much, but what he does write is invariably worth reading, as is the case here.
Sheila Finch. Where Two or Three. (Is Anybody Out There?)
Classical music becomes the link through which is established a relationship between an elderly ex-spaceman in a residential home and a 17-year old doing community service.
Paul Di Filippo. Galaxy of Mirrors. (Is Anybody Out There?)
A drily written story by Di Filippo, and my only concern is that the author is perhaps succumbing to middle age…
Jay Lake. Permanent Fatal Errors. (Is Anybody Out There?)
A tight drama from Lake in his ‘Sunspin’ setting.
Sandra McDonald. Beach Blanket Spaceship. Clarkesworld Magazine Issue #46, July 2010.
An impressive story with emotional impact.